Eschenbach conducts Beethoven's 9th

This is a live stream on medici.tv of Christoph Eschenbach's final concert as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra.

Program

• Bright Sheng, Concerto for Orchestra, "Zodiac Tales"
• Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125

Soloists:
Leah Crocetto Soprano
J'Nai Bridges Mezzo-soprano
Joseph Kaiser Tenor
Soloman Howard Bass

We need Beethoven more than ever.  He was a great soul who told us to walk our paths with joy.  We send a kiss to the whole world.  It always gives me great joy.  Eschenbach is an excellent conductor.  I don't know if a replacement is announced.

The concert can be viewed in delay.

Salzburg Don Giovanni

Conductor:  Christoph Eschenbach

Donna Anna:  Lenneke Ruiten
Donna Elvira:  Anett Fritsch
Zerlina:  Valentina Nafornita
Don Giovanni:  Ildebrando D’Arcangelo
Leporello:  Luca Pisaroni
Il Commendatore:  Tomasz Konieczny
Don Ottavio:  Andrew Staples
Masetto:  Alessio Arduini

Lots of goodies are streaming from Salzburg on medici.tv this year.  I don't know how you tell if they are charging, but if you start it running and it doesn't stop, that means it's free. 

Right now I am watching Don Giovanni.  They all appear to be in a hotel together with the characters staying in different rooms.  One of the groups of guests is getting married:  Zerlina and Masetto.   Donna Elvira comes in with her suitcase.  She is checking in.  What a great idea.  Two of the women, Zerlina and Donna Elvira, are wearing modern wedding dresses.  Donna Elvira has just come from marrying Don Giovanni, I imagine.  For me this absolutely works.

You see there's always a problem with this opera that every little bit seems to be in a different place.  So we end up with 10 or 12 sets, like the Met checkerboard.  So why not put the opera in an environment where the set stays the same and the people occupying it change?  I think the designer must be someone who spends a lot of time in hotels.

This Leporello just seems to follow DG around and goose all the same girls.  He isn't viewing his master with alarm--he's trying to get in on the action.  This reduces the complexity of his character.  

Recitative is on the piano.

One problem is that the girls are all about the same age and build, making them difficult to tell apart as their costumes change.

In the second half our newlyweds do a mostly striptease in the lobby.  When I'm up wandering around in a hotel at night, I put on a lot more than these girls.  Now they are placing a bust of the Commendatore in the lobby.  This is actually fascinating.  For my requirement that the production needs to explain the plot it is aces.  Our Giovanni and Leporello are quite the pair, more interesting together than apart.  This is the first time I've thought that Giovanni was actually the main character.  I usually feel that he is upstaged by Leporello and the girls.  Excellent.  Congratulations.  It's only suitable that it should be at Salzburg.

They poison the Don.  Donna Elvira becomes a nun.

Cosi from Salzburg

CAST

Fiordiligi:  Malin Hartelius,
Dorabella:  Marie-Claude Chappuis,
Despina:  Martina Janková,
Ferrando:  Martin Mitterrutzner,
Guglielmo:  Luca Pisaroni,
Don Alfonso:  Gerald Finley,

Perhaps it was too soon for me to see another Cosi fan tutte. I think if you get enough opera lovers together, everything will find someone to dislikes it. We used to say "Gesmacksache!"

So I will just tell the things I liked. The Despina of Martina Jankova was fresh and entertaining. I don't know why I never noticed this before, but Don Alfonso only wins because he cheats by persuading Despina to do all the work for him.

The set was a giant spa with a bath in the center and palm trees all around. In the second act the bath is covered and the palms move outside. This was a very conservative production, but still someone wanted to know "Why?"

Both of our baritones, Luca Pisaroni as Guglielmo and Gerald Finley as Don Alfonso, were excellent. Christoph Eschenbach conducted some outstanding ensembles, the key to a successful Cosi.

Our audience was very pleased, with sustained rhythmic clapping that went on for a long time.

The disguises were lame, as usual.  This time Ferrando gets Fiordiligi and Guglielmo rejects Dorabella, the consolation prize.   Don Alfonzo drinks poison and dies.  There's a lot to be explained here.  How about Fiordiligi goes to Ferrando and Guglielmo stabs him? Wouldn't that make more sense?

I bought a program for Cosi and it lists the casts of every performance of Cosi at the Salzburg Festival. It makes for some fascinating reading.

Eschenbach in Philadelphia

Read here about Christoph Eschenbach's troubles in Philadelphia. They don't like his taste for modern music, among other things. Mainly I think they don't like the fact that they were not consulted in his hiring. Musicians are funny about things like that. They play very well for him. His taste for modern cannot possibly exceed Michael Tilson Thomas', and San Francisco absolutely adores him.

There was a minnesinger called Wolfram von Eschenbach (c. 1160–1220), and this piece of trivia has probably been cluttering up my brain whenever I hear the name. Still, Christoph von Eschenbach does sound nice, don't you think?

Goerne

I went last night to see the Philadelphia Orchestra at Davies Hall in San Francisco, the same concert I tried to see a week ago in Davis. This time Matthias Goerne was there. The conductor was Christoph Eschenbach, or as I always think of him, Christoph von Eschenbach. As my concert neighbor said, the von is silent.

Goerne sang orchestrated Lieder by Schubert. The orchestrations were done by different people--Brahms, Reger and Webern--with varying amounts of success. I think I was least impressed by Webern's efforts. Too choppy and still idiomatically piano.

Goerne is a Lieder specialist and has brought a unique perspective to the genre. He has a growly, not particularly pretty baritone and a mysterious cello-like legato. He expresses with this legato, swooping and arching over the music. I had a completely different reaction to Goerne singing orchestrated Lieder than I had to Quastoff and von Otter. Here it seemed the right accompaniment for him, a more legato accompaniment to such a completely legato performance. He remains a miniaturist, not quite grasping the melodramatic requirements of an orchestra concert, blunting the climax of "Erlkoenig" when he most needed it. He's not doing drama. He's doing phrase. No one does it better. He did "Staendchen" as an encore. For me the tempo was too fast.

The Philadelphia played Brahms' Symphony #1 in the second half. It seemed a concerto for timpani to me for no reason I could explain. It starts with that fabulous timpani theme. I was fascinated watching the timpanist selecting and replacing his sticks as he stood high over the others. It was brilliantly played with especially beautiful shimmering strings.